Rambling Chantrix

A pregnant silence filled the room. I fixated on the cider’s nutrition information; Barry got on his phone.

I thought I heard him sigh.

“Listen, RC, if this is uncomfortable for you, we can reverse course anytime. My clothes are right here.”

I tried to say it was fine, but I think I just squeaked.

“Of course we don’t want you to stare at our junk, but if you refuse to look at us at all while we’re naked that’s also pretty weird. We don’t want to be hyper aware of our nudity, we just want to relax without the constrictions of clothes.”

That made sense, and I looked up to make eye contact.

“Are you okay?” he asked again. He gestured to his body.

I looked him up and down, eyes roving over him, trying not to linger in any one spot while still familiarizing myself with the sight. He looked good. A good match for Vivian. I found myself flashing back to her stories from two years ago. I’d come to understand that she had a type, and he was definitely that type. He had strong arms, long fingers, somewhat slight hips, soft-looking lips. Even completely soft, his penis looked thick.

“Nice calves,” I said like an idiot.

He burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” Vivian asked behind me, and I turned to face her, an instinct from our seminars and discussion groups, always look at whoever’s talking.

The thing about Vivian is that she was super pretty. I recognized that even at the time. She’d put her hair up into a loose bun, if I recall correctly, with stray strands framing her face, and that really set off the slope of her shoulders, the outward bend of her titties—her word, not mine—the cleft between them and the soft bump of her tummy. She had wider hips than I’d expected, with a thick but soft-looking patch of black pubes covering most of her prominent mons.

“I see Barry explained it’s okay to look?”

I apologized and turned away.

“No need for sorries!”

She walked over and took her seat across from me, drawing her legs up under her. This was a fairly modest pose, her sex completely hidden. She beamed at Barry, then lifted her cider for another sip.

“I’ve been naked around a bunch of dudes,” Vivian said after a moment of silence. “And yeah, this is different. Honestly it’s even better than being dressed around a lot of men. I don’t feel like I’m on display. I’m just, me.”

I nodded. This was definitely weird, but it wasn’t bad. I wasn’t aroused, and neither were they. It was like being at the beach, but a little more extreme. And honestly, when I say it was weird, it was less weird than I thought it would be.

It was fine, and I said that. My roomies smiled at me, thanked me, toasted me.

I almost never saw them in a stitch of clothing around the house after that, except right before they left the house or right after they came home. They told me they’d make themselves decent if I wanted to invite friends over, but all my besties had left town, so I never took them up on the offer.

After that first day, I quickly became inured to it all. It didn’t bother me at all, and I was relieved that I had made the generous decision, because Barry and Vivian were clearly much happier unclothed, and it didn’t cost me anything to accommodate them.

They occasionally asked if I had any interest in joining them in nudity, but it just wasn’t this electrifying, appealing thing for me the way it seemed to be for them. I adapted to our asymmetrical lifestyle with relative ease.

#

In short order, one advantage of my friends’ nude lifestyle made itself abundantly obvious to me.

Lest you confuse what I’ve said about my sexual experiences up to this point for a phobia of bodies and touch: they’re not related. I happen to be a fairly touchy-feely person. I like hugs. I had friends in college with whom I’d hold hands. And I loved giving, and receiving, massage.

From the word go, Vivian and Barry and I had been giving each other shoulder rubs, hand rubs, foot rubs. From the first day we moved all our crap into that apartment. We were tired, aching, and I proposed it. Then Vivian was on her feet a lot at work, and Barry really wore out his hands with his music practice, so I just kept offering rubs, and they would reciprocate.

This all predated the advent of their near-constant nudity, and there was a brief lull in our mutual massage habits during the adjustment period. It was one thing to not be weirded out by their naked bodies, and it was another thing entirely to feel like I should touch them.

They seemed to acknowledge this implicitly, as they didn’t seek any massage for a few days.

But maybe a week after that night Barry stripped in front of me, on I think a Thursday afternoon, he commented on my posture and asked me if I wanted a shoulder rub. That seemed perfectly normal, so I said yes, and when he was done turning my back into jelly I asked, almost by instinct, if he wanted any rubs.

He was a better communicator than myself or Vivian, so he was blunt.

“I’d love it if you did my back, RC, if it’s not weird for you.”

I thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. I supposed it wasn’t too weird if I’d offered, and the idea of getting into it without a shirt between my knuckles and his shoulder blades didn’t cause me any alarm, so I shook my head and said I was good for it.

He smiled and lay down on the couch. I knelt on the carpet next to him and went to town.

And wow, so, there’s advantages and disadvantages. I had so much more control over my strength and the pace of my motions without that layer of fabric sliding between us. On the other hand, I could tell that I was applying a bit more friction to his skin than I would be otherwise.

“This would be better with some kind of massage oil,” I mused aloud.

“Mmm,” said Barry.

Vivian came home to this scene, and looked overjoyed at our activity. Over the next few days, I procured some massage supplies, and we sat down for a fairly thorough discussion of massage boundaries. For our standards, it was very mature and intentional, and really out of place in this narrative for it.

The gist of it was that up till then we’d stuck to the least intimate kinds of massages, but if we were cool with each other’s bodies in a nonsexual way, there was no real reason not to indulge in fuller-body massages. This wasn’t all put forward by them, either. I thought it was kind of dumb that we’d been limiting ourselves, and said as much. Barry and Vivian, having already bared all to me, didn’t have to focus on covering up or decorum. I got kind of into it. They seemed a little... surprised? gratified? at how well I was adjusting to their nudity, and they were definitely thankful for the increased breadth of massage: calves, shins, thighs, hips, lower backs, chests.

It was great. I became intimately acquainted with their bodies, and took immense joy in bringing them pleasure, in working out the kinks in their muscles, in helping them relax after stressful days.

And I was comfortable enough with them that I joined them in nudity, just for massages, gladly accepting their reciprocity—though I still had some modesty, covering my junk with a towel when it was my turn.

Weird thing, but I think when you treat something with care, you tend to start to like it.

I don’t know exactly when I became aware of it, but I liked their bodies.

And I liked *them*.

Vivian was endless fun, and Barry was a really inspiring artist. Coming home to them was often the best part of my day. I enjoyed our massage times together, of course, but I also enjoyed the more mundane things: sharing meals and sharing chores, following the same TV shows, buying board games together. And I enjoyed all these things with them nude.

But nothing is without its growing pains (see what I did there?) and I do keep promising you sex, so this is far from the end of the story.

#

About two months after that first night of nudity, I noticed that I had the living room to myself more often.

When Vivian was out at work, Barry spent plenty of time in the common area. But when she came home, he’d only stick around to socialize a bit. Often he took her with him when he retreated. I didn’t know what any of this meant, but there was a marked shift in behavior, so I asked her about it over lunch. What were we eating, you ask? Take a guess! Falafel, fucking duh.

She sighed deeply at my probe.

“I wanna be honest with you RC, but I don’t wanna make anyone uncomfortable. I dunno what to say.”

“I mean it seems like he’s already pretty uncomfortable,” I said. “Holing up like that. I hope it’s not something I’m doing.”

“Oh no! Nothing, you’re great.” Vivian sighed again. “I just don’t know, it’s hard to explain, and I’m worried it might mess things up with us. I don’t wanna risk our situation. I like living with you a lot.”

“I like living with you too,” I said. “And Barry. He knows that, right?”

“He does.”

“So what’s wrong?”

“I, uh, how to say this. RC, it’s like, it’s a sex thing. Do you mind if we talk about a sex thing?”

She still felt pretty remorseful for dumping all that shit on me in sophomore year, I guess. But again, I’m not a prude. I don’t need the erotica version of everyone’s love life but I certainly don’t think I react poorly to, say, the knowledge that two people are having sex on the other side of a door.

“What’s up?” I asked.

She hesitated. I caught on. Boundaries! In retrospect, she was trying to respect them, and I should have appreciated that and held her to it. But I was impatient, and worried, and maybe a little excited, so I didn’t respect her efforts. Instead of answering her question, I just pressured her to continue.

“Spit it out!”

“Okay, sheesh,” she said. “The short version is he’s been stupid horny recently.”

“Seems like a good fit for you.” This was Vivian, after all, who had regaled me with countless gleeful stories of sexual conquests just a couple years earlier. Her thirst seemed epic to me, and I failed to see how Barry living up to it could possibly be a bad thing. Of course, there’s a big gap between thinking something and saying it, and I probably shouldn’t have said that.

She blinked, then seemed to think a moment. Slowly she grinned. Contemplating, no doubt, the “fit.” Right before I wondered if I should do something to advance the conversation—be it apologizing, or otherwise prompting her to speak—she snapped out of it.

“Well, no complaints I suppose,” she admitted. “But, I mean, you know. You’re there, and he doesn’t want to stick his erection in your face all the time, so he’s been hiding.”

Still on my bullshit, and maybe a little falafel-drunk, I countered: “Seems like a false binary.”

“Huh?”

“There’s a lot of space between your room and my face for his erection to occupy. It’s not one or the other.”

Vivian frowned. “It was a figure of speech.”

At this chastising, I repented and took another few bites of food.

“But is that how you feel, RC?” she asked. “Like if it’s not literally in your face, you don’t care?”

I hadn’t quite said that, but I could see how she got there, and I gave it a thought as I tried to clean my hands with the woefully small number of napkins I’d been given. I’d seen Barry’s penis daily for months, and it’s not like I’d never seen him with an erection. Sometimes I’d come home and he’d be napping on the couch with a semi, and on occasion he’d stiffen a little snuggling Vivian during movies. I didn’t exactly make it a point to stare at his cock, but it’s not like I freaked out and ran away every time it was visible. It was a nice enough penis, I supposed, and it wasn’t doing anything to me.

“I guess not?” I shrugged. “I mean, how does Barry feel?”

“What do you mean?”

“Bear in mind I don’t really understand the heart of nudism, or what the problem is on a fundamental level. Is it bad form for someone to show that they’re horny when they’re nude? Is it that Barry doesn’t want to offend me, or is he uncomfortable presenting?”

Vivian raised an eyebrow. “Presenting?”

“You know.”

“Oh believe me, I definitely know. It’s just... you have a funny way of saying things sometimes. You sound so cool and detached.”

“Well, I did drop English to pursue the hard and reliable science of philosophy.”

“Right.” She smiled, briefly, then frowned again. “I think it’s more the former than the latter, though definitely being worried about offending you makes him uncomfortable.”

I’d had zero ciders at this point—it being one in the afternoon on a Sunday—but I was definitely buzzed on the supernal falafel. So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that I said the same thing I had said two months earlier:

“How would you feel if we tried it out but I could say it’s not working for me?”

“Tried *what* out, RC?”

“I dunno, just like, all of us being cool if Barry gets an erection.”

Vivian looked awestruck, as if she hadn’t been tracking the direction the conversation was taking at all. “I’d like that a lot. You’re a trooper.”

“That’s what my mom used to call me when I got hurt.”

“Whatever. You’re the best. Have I said I love living with you?”

Now, I wish I were making this up, but I definitely responded by saying “Love you too.”

You know who I blame?

I blame Mark Zuckerberg.

Actually, though. That asshole put all these amazing love-themed stickers in his messenger app, and I’d gotten so used to using them in casual conversations with friends that it apparently bled over into the real world in this instance.

Vivian looked at me strangely, and I felt a weird heat in my cheeks.

She seemed to do some mental arithmetic or something, then she just smiled. “We’re all so lucky you replied to my random message back in May.”

I nodded, unclear if the moment had passed.

Guess what, folks? It had! I’m going to jump ahead again, because I feel like I’m really bogging us down in these heartfelt interactions. They’re really getting in the way of all the sex I’ve repeatedly promised you, and, while that’s definitely how I operate, again, we’ve established that you’re here to get some dopamine and possibly release bodily fluids, so I’m going to try to hurry things along. Just remember, the burn was much slower for me than it is for you.

Barry was happy with my idea, and the three of us began spending more time together again. We played board games, watched TV, ate together, drank together. Sometimes we got high together.

Just about every time we hung out, Barry inevitably got hard.

It occurred to me at some point that I’d never asked Vivian *why* he was getting hornier recently, but I was so unbothered it didn’t seem like a worthwhile inquiry.

I just really didn’t care.

He wasn’t doing anything with his erection. He just had the same penis he always had, in a slightly different shape. I should emphasize, because doubtless some of you are here for the salacious details, that it was a niiice cock. Thick, as I mentioned before, and of appreciable length without being, like, die-choking-on-it big. It curved up a bit, and honestly it looked a little cool perched on his thigh as we played Hanabi.

His nonchalance about his state of arousal made me think about my own rejection of nudism. If he could be fine being around me hard, what was so scary about being naked myself? These thoughts were abortive, and I still refused to join my roommates.

But my comfort did increase. I got used to the jiggle of Vivian’s titties, the way her nipples occasionally pointed up more. Sometimes when she and Barry were sitting next to each other during an episode of TV, and she got up, I could swear there was a bit of a gleam on her inner thigh, or a bit of puffy flesh protruding beneath her pubes. I noticed these things without staring, and without any of the negative feelings that had driven me to recognize my own demisexuality: none of the pressure to observe normative attraction, never an unwanted invitation to participate in something, no expectation that I enjoy witnessing a union. Despite the introduction of arousal into our little dynamic, the experience remained completely chaste.

#

Until, of course, Vivian slipped.

In early August, we were three abreast on the couch watching a nature documentary, and there were some male sheeps fighting for a mate or something natural like that. Barry laughed as they head-butted each other.

“Why you gotta be so horny?” he guffawed.

This is something we did all the time, cracking jokes at the TV.

But this time, Vivian’s response was of a different caliber from our usual banter.

“You’re one to talk,” she said, reaching over and grabbing Barry’s erect cock.

I’d been watching the TV, not Barry’s junk, so I only caught the motion in the corner of my peripheral vision. But still, I caught it. Unsure why, I turned to look closer.

Barry and Vivian were silent. Barry shrank a little as sheepishness crossed their faces. She retrieved her hand gingerly.

No one said anything for a while. The documentary moved on from sheep to some kind of bird of prey, I honestly don’t remember whether it was some kind of hawk or what. I turned back to the screen wordlessly, trying and failing to focus on the program. My mind was full of questions: why had she done that? Why had I looked? Why is no one saying anything? Just kidding on that last one, I knew why no one was saying anything. It was awkward as hell.

There was some whispering. I couldn’t make any of it out over the narration.

Finally they stood, and started to leave the room.

“Should I pause?” I asked.

“Oh, no, I don’t wanna make you stop watching,” said Vivian. As if I cared that much about this stupid nature documentary.

“If you’re not done with the episode, I don’t need to go on without you,” I replied. As if they cared that much about this stupid nature documentary.

And yet here we were, at a standstill over this stupid nature documentary.

“Look, we really don’t wanna make you stop.”

“Look, I really don’t wanna make you miss any.”

We went back and forth a few times.

Barry was the brave one. Or maybe he was just that horny. He was fully erect again, after all. He addressed Vivian. “If RC doesn’t wanna pause, and you don’t wanna miss it, why don’t we just stay here?”

The three of us exchanged a series of long glances as the documentary continued in the background, all but ignored despite the apparent significance granted it in our conversation. The content didn’t matter. Vivian peered into my eyes, the question clear on her face. Did I understand what Barry was suggesting? Of course I did. We all did. I remember the intensity of my heartbeat. Would this change everything between us in a bad way?

“I don’t see the problem,” I said, finally, turning back to the TV.

“Okay then,” said Vivian.

She led Barry back to the couch, sitting down between us.

I have no idea what happened next in the documentary. I was facing the TV, sure, but I couldn’t not pay attention as Vivian spat into her hand and began stroking Barry’s cock. She started slow at first, traversing the entire length of his shaft.

The rhythm was interesting to me, from an analytical perspective. I don’t say this for the sole purpose of breaking you out of the moment, but like. This is my story. I wasn’t like, *into* her jerking him off. It was just something that was happening, and I wasn’t really sure yet how to process it. So there I was, marveling at how her hand moved slower as she pulled away from the base of his cock than it did as she slid back down the length. I didn’t masturbate like that, but it kind of made sense based on my admittedly limited experience putting my dick inside other people.

Gradually she picked up the pace, and localized her efforts, spending some time rigorously manipulating different portions of Barry’s cock. When she added a second hand, massaging his balls, he grunted.